Category: Grammar
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The Te Form Song
The Te-Form Song. What now?? A good question. This is a handy little mnemonic taught to me by my own teacher way back when I was still a beginning student of Japanese. It helped me immensely, so now I’m passing it on to you!
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The Course of Events – 成り行き
Nariyuki (成り行き) generally means something like ‘the natural scheme of things’, but it can be a bit of a surprise the first time you come across it in a given situation. This post looks at a few examples of its usage.
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Not Necessarily – 訳ではない
Is that an Obama Bobble Head figurine I see? Why yes, it is! Some plucky employee has scrawled a message below it talking about black people. Do you know your grammar well enough to decipher it?
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Pretending Not to Know – ふり
Have you ever come across the word ふり before? It’s used in a variety of situations to show pretense or false behaviour. Today’s phrase we’ll focus on then is 知らんぷり – pretending not to know something. You’ll also learn about the mysterious ん slotted in there!
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Taking a Message / とのこと
Office messages are known as 伝言 (でんごん) and a vital part of business life in Japan, or indeed many countries. Today we take a look at a simple example and a peculiar piece of grammar that is often used when taking messages.
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Do Not! / べからず
In the same way that we have different variations of the same words in English (synonyms), Japanese usually has at least a few ways of expressing a grammar point, depending on the situation. Since we are only taught the most popular methods, old Japanese tends to trip us up sometimes!
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No Smoking / にて
Here’s a quick and easy chunk of Japanese for beginners/intermediate learners to digest. You’ll see no smoking signs everywhere in Japan, but the particular little morsel of grammar in this one stood out for me: にて. Heard of it?